


Until Proven Innocent

by inkandpaperhowl



Category: Stormlight Archive - Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Gen, Macbethian overtones, Words of Radiance spoilers, blood cw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 00:16:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandpaperhowl/pseuds/inkandpaperhowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t know there was such a thing as guiltspren, but there they are, glinting like steel in the dark, buzzing like tiny flies around his ears, impossible to shake off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Proven Innocent

**Author's Note:**

> CFSWF was too inspiring and I hurt myself while writing this.

After it all goes down, they will look back and realize that if Kaladin had been there, it all could have been stopped. Kaladin would have noticed; it was his job to notice. But Kaladin wasn’t there, and things go wrong. 

Adolin develops a bad habit of wiping his hand on his coat. It’s nothing at first, just a tiny flick of his fingers down his front. An almost imperceptible tic, something Renarin sees flash out of the corner of his eyes but attributes to a trick of the light. As time passes, though, Adolin pushes harder, and it’s not just a flick anymore. He’s trying to clean something off his hand, but the weird thing is that his hands are always clean. Dalinar frowns but forgets. (It’s not his fault. He has bigger things on his mind.)

The thing is, Adolin’s hands are not clean. There is blood there, it’s always there, no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it. The creases in his palm are sticky and brown with dried blood, and the skin of his fingertips is stained red.

(Of course, the blood washed off a while ago.)

There is a lull before the news breaks that Sadeas is dead. In the confusion of settling in, in the craziness of exploring Urithuru and making it habitable once again, no one really notices that the highprince is gone for a few days. But then Dalinar calls a council meeting to discuss their next move, and Sadeas doesn’t show up. Of all people,  _Sadeas_. So they send out search parties, and it becomes less about exploring the nooks and crannies of the city and more about finding Sadeas. They eventually drag his body out into the light, and there is screaming and tears and not a few mutters that sound a lot like, “Good riddance.” 

Shallan raises her eyebrows and suggests they organize an investigation into the murder. If someone was just out for revenge for Sadeas’ betrayal, that’s one thing, but what if there is an assassin waiting to pick off more highprinces? They should conduct a full inquiry. 

Adolin goes a little wild-eyed at this suggestion, and scrubs his hand on his pants. Dalinar agrees with Shallan, though, and assigns Adolin to help her. “You led the search into the last attempt on Elhokar’s life, son. Think you can do it again?” Adolin nods, and curls his hands into fists and puts them behind his back so that his father won’t see the red stains. 

(Of course, there are no red stains.)

The investigation goes badly. There is too much else going on, more important things (like the end of the world), and when it becomes clear that no one else is going to be killed by whomever it was that did Sadeas in, they all sort of move on. They appoint a new highprince—a second or third cousin of Sadeas’—and get on with the saving of the world. And honestly, they can do it so much more effectively now. Without Sadeas blocking Dalinar and discrediting him at every possible turn, things begin to run smoothly, and finally,  _finally_  Dalinar thinks that maybe Alethkar might just be able to truly unite. 

No one notices that Adolin has taken to spending time alone, wandering the deepest tunnels underneath Urithuru, muttering to himself and scraping his hand along the walls. One day, he arrives at the sparring grounds with a ragged bandage badly tied around his palm. Zahel asks what he did, but Adolin only shakes his head and fights harder. His Shardblade slips, though, when the scrapes bleed through the cloth and the hilt falls from his hand. He stares at it, the rough leather soaking up the blood, and he turns silently and walks out of the ring. He’s locked in his room, tearing off his Plate, and sobbing by the time he remembers to dismiss the Blade and it fades out of the sparring ring, much to Zahel’s surprise.  _Strange_ , he thinks, but Adolin has never been normal. He’s a prince, after all. He shrugs, and moves to correct Renarin on a particularly difficult stance. 

Renarin knocks on his brother’s door later that day, and is surprised when Adolin answers, eyes rimmed in red. Adolin has not cried since childhood—he even maintained an imitation of their father’s stoic strength at their mother’s funeral. And then, finally, Renarin realizes that something is wrong. But when he asks, Adolin refuses to answer, only smiles broadly as tells Renarin it’s nothing and would he like to visit Aunt Navani before dinner he’s heard she’s working on some new fabrial or other and he promised to be marginally interested. 

They begin making raids against the voidbringers, the things the Parshendi have become, and though it seems like they are making progress, the battles are long, hard, bloody. They lose a lot of good men. No one is fiercer in battle than Adolin, and Dalinar is proud to see the magnificent fighter his son has become. But he notices that Adolin has become more reckless lately. He’s been leading charges, which is nothing new, but the length of his head start has grown. He charges without backup, without a retreat planned or held, without support. He orders his men to retreat when things begin to turn for the worse, but he does not retreat with them. He remains, fighting long after his men have made it to safety, long after he should. When Dalinar has to take a squad of soldiers and cut his way through a circle of voidbringers to where Adolin has been completely surrounded and almost overwhelmed, fighting like a cornered tiger, with wild eyes, he knows something is wrong. This is not just the Thrill, this is something dangerous. And he asks Adolin to remain in Urithuru for the next few battles, and watches him. He does not watch closely enough to see the rough patches of dry skin on his son’s hands where he has washed them too many times. 

Some of Sadeas’ former allies begin grumbling, and stirring up trouble again. Amaram makes noises about how the investigation was dropped, using it for leverage against Dalinar. Adolin’s eyes darken when he hears Amaram discrediting Dalinar’s tactics in this war.  _Not again_ , he thinks,  _no more. We had enough of this with Sadeas, we will not go through this again. I will not let this happen again_. He rubs the back of his hand absentmindedly, and fingers the hilt of his dagger when Amaram walks by. 

 _I did it once,_  he whispers to the dark, pacing over the dark stains on the floor where Sadeas had bled out under his fingers.  _What’s to stop me from doing it again?_  He thinks of the look in Renarin’s eyes, worry and fear and uncertainty. He thinks of the pride in Dalinar’s eyes.  _I am not the man my father thinks I am_. He collapses in the dark and presses his hands to the stone and  _feels_  the blood (long dried) seeping into his skin. He didn’t know there was such a thing as guiltspren, but there they are, glinting like steel in the dark, buzzing like tiny flies around his ears, impossible to shake off. They land on his shoulders, weighing him down, though he knows they weigh nothing at all. They have become his constant companions and he knows all there is to know about them. They are only visible in the deepest, blackest dark; any hint of light will render them translucent and silent, a presence only seen or heard by the one they haunt. He brushes them off his shoulder with hands the color of blood, but they buzz angrily and settle right back in. He closes his eyes and sees his father’s disappointment.  _What have I done?_

He resists for much longer than he thought he would be able to. It’s Amaram’s turn to drag his father through the mud. He blames Dalinar for their refugee status, their unfinished camps in the halls of Urithuru, for taking the people from their homes again. He blames him for failing to stop the Everstorm from arising. He blames him for the deaths of Roion and for every other man who died in the final, awful battle before the Oathgate. He claims Dalinar has broken the Vengeance Pact, and is no longer seeking revenge for the death of Gavilar, but is instead focused on his new powers as a Radiant. He blames Dalinar for being a Radiant, and for not sharing the power. As if it were a power that could be parceled out like gemhearts. 

Adolin resists, knowing that if he were to go around killing every person who insulted his father, he would have no time for anything else. He resists, knowing how utterly disappointed Dalinar would be that he had stooped to Sadeas’ level.  _We are better than this, son,_  he would say,  _we are stronger. We follow the Codes_. Storm the Codes. They were more like guidelines, anyway. 

He breaks one day in the council chamber, just after all the other highprinces have left, and Amaram has remained behind to make snide comments at Dalinar. He breaks and before he is conscious of what exactly he is doing, his hand is wrapped around his dagger, and there is blood between his fingers, and Amaram is staring at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. But then Amaram blinks, and Adolin has never been so confused and terrified in his life, and he looks down at his hand, his bloody hand, and sees his dagger is buried to the hilt in Renarin’s chest, and his brother is looking up at him in stunned horror, and somewhere behind him Navani is screaming, and Shallan is screaming, and Dalinar  _roars_. 

And yet, somehow, the most astounding part of all this is the fact that Renarin leapt between them and saved Amaram’s life. 

(It’s not until much, much later that they realize he wasn’t trying to save Amaram’s life, he was trying to stop his brother from murdering another human being in cold blood.) 

They lock Adolin in a dark room until they figure out what to do with him. He stops speaking and doesn’t eat and though he paces sometimes, and wipes his hands on his shirt over and over again, his eyes are dead and cold and tired. Dalinar tries to speak to him, to make things better, but all Adolin can see is disappointment and sadness, and all he can hear is that roar of grief and anger and absolute suffering. And no matter how many times Dalinar says he forgives him, Adolin can only look at him and shake his head. Dalinar forgave him, but he never forgives himself. 

Kaladin comes back from Hearthstone in time for Renarin’s funeral. He doesn’t say anything, but there is deep, horrified anger in his eyes. Everyone steers clear of him for a week. He spends most days doing katas on the sparring ground, furiously stamping out patterns with his spear while Syl darts around him. He skips nightly stew. They begin to worry about him, but he comes in one night, scrapes the last dregs of stew from the bottom of the pot, and announces that he’s going to see Adolin tomorrow. They try to dissuade him, and suggest that maybe one—or four—of them should come with, but he simply glares and they let him go alone. 

Dalinar is sitting on the floor outside Adolin’s door when Kaladin arrives, and his eyes are sad and tired and he shrugs when Kaladin asks anything. The captain watches Adolin through the bars on the door for a few minutes and narrows his eyes. He points out Adolin’s nervous tic, and Dalinar straightens. “How long has he been doing that?” Kaladin asks, and Dalinar doesn’t know. Since before…since…since they’d arrived at Urithuru, or a few days after at least. He’d never really noticed. 

“About the time Sadeas went missing,” Dalinar trails off and realizes. Kaladin puts a hand on his shoulder. 

“You didn’t know.”

“I should have.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Kaladin turns the key and enters Adolin’s room. The prince looks up from his hands and a spark of something appears in his dead eyes. Fear maybe. He hadn’t thought about what Kaladin would think of him. He hadn’t thought he would be disappointing anyone besides his father and his aunt by turning into a murderer. 

But Kaladin doesn’t say anything. For a long while, he simply sits on a chair facing Adolin, and watches him. He takes his hands in his, and holds them still. He watches the set of Adolin’s shoulders, and the rise and fall of his ragged breath, the tired lines around his eyes. 

When he does speak, it isn’t of how he’s disappointed or angry. He doesn’t blame Adolin, as Navani does; he doesn’t forgive him, as Dalinar does. He speaks of a boy named Rillir, who died on the surgeon’s table after a bad hunt ended worse. He speaks of a boy named Tien, who he followed into the army, who he watched die from a spear thrust to the heart. He speaks of a man named Dallet and a boy named Cenn, who died at the hands of a Shardbearer. He speaks of a man named Coreb, who didn’t scream when Amaram killed him. He speaks of slaves, too many to name, who he tired to help escape. He speaks of a woman. He speaks of bridgemen, men who died before he cared and men who died even though they were strapped to the bridge and carried home. He speaks of people he tried to save, people who he failed. He speaks of the fact that he still blames himself for every one of those deaths. That sometimes, when it is very, very dark outside, he watches the sparks of steel glinting as they settle onto his shoulders and buzz in his ears. 

“I know,” Kaladin says, finally. “I know.” And he squeezes Adolin’s hands, and for the first time since, Adolin speaks. He repeats three words over and over while Kaladin holds him, “It’s my fault.” And Kaladin simply responds, “I know.” And finally, when Adolin cries, Kaladin smiles bitterly and says, “It’s my fault, too, remember. What use is a bodyguard who’s half a continent away?” 

And much to Adolin’s surprise, a full half of guiltspren on his shoulders lift themselves across the gap between the two sobbing wrecks of men and settle themselves on Kaladin’s shoulders. “We’ll share,” the bridgeman says quietly. “We’ll share.”

Years later, Dalinar would remember how quickly Kaladin had noticed, and would wonder if it all could have been avoided if only Kaladin were there. He would never mention this, though, knowing that Kaladin already knew he could have stopped it if he hadn’t been across the world, and blamed himself enough already for once again failing to save those he had sworn to protect.


End file.
